Included in these images was one video lasting 17 minutes, according to officers.

He was sentenced to 32 months’ imprisonment at Lewes Crown Court on Monday (March, 16).

Officers said he will be a registered sex offender for life and was given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) to last indefinitely, severely restricting his access to computers and other digital devices.

DC Gary Baker said:

“Our investigation started when we received intelligence that Oak had been accessing indecent images of children, including videos, from the Internet, and had made hundreds of them further available by online recirculation.

“We arrested him at an address at which he was then living in Hastings, and seized laptops and hard drives which were his personal property.

“Once we interviewed him and confronted him with the evidence he had little option but to admit what he had been systematically doing over a period of years.

“Each one of the images represents a child being abused and this was reflected in the court’s sentence.”

Police reassure that all the images were taken from the Internet and there is no evidence that any were of local children.

All Oak’s offending took place at the address in Hastings where he was living when he was arrested, police said.

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